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The benefits of being a good reader have their roots early on in a person’s life and are considered to be an important part of education in the early years.

Meredith Martin is one of those people providing extra attention in order to help students maintain those lifelong skills early on. She’s in the fourth and final year of a tutoring program through Ampact, which helps students achieve reading goals at a class level.

“My goal is to take kids who are not at grade level in reading, but aren’t getting other services and bring them up to grade level,” Martin said. “This is an incredibly important program to help children get up to grade level and I’m really proud because we have exited kids to grade level more than I’ve seen before.”

Martin is part of Reading Corps, one of the three educational areas Ampact provides tutors for, which also includes Math Corps and Early Learning Corps. The program is grant driven and while tutors receive a stipend, it allows them to spend full terms as a volunteer.

In 2023-24, over 3,100 tutors took part in these early educational opportunities for over 66,000 children through the three areas.

According to Jen Tepovich, program manager for Ampact, Martin herself has provided 100,000 minutes of tutoring time.

“She is part of a much bigger picture looking at the state of Minnesota,” Tepovich said. “There are 1,300 tutors in the state of Minnesota. Imagine that impact Meredith has had 1,300 times.”

Tutoring through this program has become something of a family tradition for the Martins. Martin, who is based in Neveln Elementary School, is actually following the steps of her oldest daughter, who was the first in the family to take part in the program. Now, Martin’s youngest daughter, an English major, is following in their footsteps.

For those who are students, taking part in Reading Corp provides the option of a Segal Award, which provides a stipend that can either go toward student loans or directly to college funding.

However, in Martin’s case she was looking for something that would allow her to continue having an impact on children’s lives after 17 years as the director of the Austin Congregational UCC preschool program, while also supplementing her income.

The school closed last year because of a lack of students so Martin followed that by moving fully to Reading Corp.

Martin has plenty on her plate.

“On a typical day I see 20 students and I work with children either one-on-one or in groups of two and we use a curriculum that’s been created by AmeriCorps,” Martin explained. Ampact specializes in managing and scaling high-quality AmeriCorps programs. It’s really effective and I really enjoy it.”

A student’s reading proficiency is based on early assessments. From there work can range from letter identification to sound identification and progressing up from there.

Martin said one of the best parts of her job is watching that progression in students as they get back on track or helping them find a love of reading in general.

“One of the things I love the most is seeing children that I’ve taught to do visual phonics and identify their letters and become emergent readers or even better readers,” Martin said. “Watching kids who say, ‘I don’t want to read. I don’t like reading’ and turning them into kids that love reading and helping them really understand they like reading, but they are maybe not looking at it as reading.”

Seeing that kind of process comes down to the type of person that usually takes part in the three tutoring programs.

“If they aren’t passionate already, they are looking for something to be passionate about,” Tepovich said. “At the end of their first school year they are very excited.”

Tepovich has worked with Martin for two of the four years she’s been in Reading Corp and she said that Martin is emblematic of the kind of people who dedicate their time to helping the children they tutor.

It’s about making connections and seeing those goals met.

“I think if you ask that question of most tutors it comes down to moments when students get it,” Tepovich said. “The light bulb moment. When I ask tutors what does it mean to have a meaningful impact, that’s the answer.”

Based on her own time in the program, Martin said that if a person is interested in helping kids get to where they need to be, then this is the program for them. People don’t have to have teaching backgrounds or a desire to get into education. They just need to have the willingness to help.

“They are always looking for new people and anybody who is interested should definitely reach out to Ampact,” Martin said. “If you like kids and want to make a difference there’s math and reading tutor jobs available. I’ve loved it.”

If you are interested in becoming a tutor, visit: https://www.ampact.us/education and scroll down to find tutoring opportunities or to learn more about the programs themselves.

Tepovich said that Ampact is looking to fill six to eight slots available in the Austin area.